THE ARABIAN JOUZ-METHEL, OR METEL NUT 



Described by Avicemna in the eleventh century {Datura metel L.). These are specimens from 

 the drug collection of the U. S. National Museum. Datura is a genus of large, coarse, rank- 

 smelling, poisonous plants of the nightshade family, growing in waste places, with large, showy, 

 funnel-shaped flowers succeeded by globular, prickly, four-celled capsules. All the species, of 

 which the thorn-apple or Jimson weed is the best known, possess narcotic and poisonous prop- 

 erties. (Fig. 10.) 



There can be no question as to the 

 identity of Linnaeus's Datura metel, 

 and there can be no excuse for calling 

 it Datura alba or Datura fastuosa (the 

 latter name applied to its forms with 

 double corollas) nor for transferring its 

 perfectly valid name to the American 

 "downy thorn-apple" {Datura innoxia) 

 described by Miller in 1768.- 



Both the white-flowered and the 

 colored varieties of Datura metel are 

 used as intoxicants; it would be inter- 

 esting to determine which is the most 

 efficacious. In 1563 Garcia de Orta, 

 physician in charge of the hospital of 

 Goa, Portuguese India, published an 

 account of the criminal uses of dhatura 

 by servants and highway robbers. 

 Thirty-three years later Huyghen van 

 Linschoten, in the journal of his travels, 



described its use by the woman of Goa 

 as follows: "They have likewise an 

 hearbe called Deutroa which beareth a 

 seed, whereof bruising out the sap they 

 put it into a cup or other vessel and 

 give it to their husbands, eyther in 

 meate or drinke and presently there- 

 with the man is as though hee were 

 halfe out of his wits and without feeling, 

 or else drunke (doing nothing but) 

 laugh, and sometimes it taketh him 

 sleeping (whereby he lyeth) like a dead 

 man, so that in his presence they may 

 doe what they will and take their 

 pleasure with their friends, and the 

 husband never know it. In which sort 

 he continueth foure and twentie hours 

 long; but if they wash his feete with 

 cold water hee presently reviveth and 

 knoweth nothing thereof but thinketh 



' For the synonomy of these two species see the author's Synopsis of the Genus Datura, in 

 Journ, Wash. Acad. Sci. 11:— 1921. 



